


2016 Christmas drabbles

by unbelievable2



Category: The Sentinel
Genre: Gen, The Sentinel Secret Santa
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-01
Updated: 2017-01-01
Packaged: 2018-09-14 00:04:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,970
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9148084
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/unbelievable2/pseuds/unbelievable2
Summary: "Snow Deer" - A moment of woodland magic. Prompt: "deer""Penguin-free Zone" - When it's not a Nativity Scene... Prompt: "arctic""Arrivals Hall" - Someone's coming home. Prompt: "light/lights""Piney-fresh" - The Great Outdoors never smelled like that. Prompt: "pine""Planning Ahead" - Some things are meant to be. Prompt: "gingerbread""Ginger Up!" - Blair makes use of an old tradition. Sort of. Prompt: "gingerbread""Christmas - Sentinel-style" - Jim has a very clear idea about how to plan for Chrismas. Prompt: "Christmas (Eve) Eve"





	

**Author's Note:**

> Word counts for each drabble are stated at the beginning of each - all are around 500 words or less.  
> All but one are squeaky-clean Gen. The one that isnt, is so very barely slash I have ventured to keep it in the bundle with all the others under a Gen umbrella.

**Title:** Snow-deer  
**Type:** Gen  
**Rating:** General audiences  
**Word Count:** ~500  
**Summary:** A moment of woodland magic

"Snow-deer"  
What had started as a bright day was now greying out with the increasing cloud cover – the new front coming in a little earlier than the weather guys had predicted, thought Blair. He was glad they were less than an hour from the truck, as the light would be deteriorating pretty quickly now.

Still, they had had a great day on the Alger Truck Trail – a new area for both him and Jim, at the bottom of the state near the vast expanse of the Lower Columbia River – and it was the close of a weekend of hiking. They'd covered a lot of ground during that day, sometimes chatting, but more frequently in a deeply companionable silence, accompanied only by the crunch of their feet on the light snow covering along the trail, and the frequent chitters and squawks of various types of wildlife. Blair, in the main, failed to catch sight of whatever it was.

Having a Sentinel next to you was, Blair reflected, either a boon or a frustration. Jim was frequently yelping: "Look, Chief! See that over there?", where _"over there"_ usually meant two hundred yards away in the gloom of pines, and _"that"_ was something the size of a chipmunk. But on many occasions, too, he would find Jim's arm on his shoulder, aligning him correctly, his friend's free hand pointing out something that Blair would have missed without Jim's keener eyes – an eagle circling gracefully high up, maybe, or a Northern Flicker sneaking round the edge of a tree-trunk to peek at them.

Now, it was sound that halted them. Or at least, that's what Blair imagined it to be. Jim had frozen, almost in mid-step, with his hand up for silence. Blair glanced around, but could hear or see nothing. He looked at Jim, and saw the slow smile.

"Here they come" said Jim, softly.

Blair felt, rather than heard them; a light pounding on the ground, a rush of movement. They bounced almost silently through the trees, crunching a little on the crisp, frozen crust of snow, but otherwise hardly making a sound. Elegant legs and proud heads - a group of females and the young of that year. The main group twitched at the sight of Jim and Blair, and changed its course, but one of the leaders slowed her pace, gazing back at them for a moment with a liquid eye. Then she bounded on as well, and they were lost among the pines.

Blair let out his breath, only then realising he had been holding it since the deer had come into view. He found he was smiling – a wide, involuntary smile of pure delight. He glanced at Jim and saw that he, too, was just as moved.

"So beautiful," whispered Jim. "But they're White-Tailed deer. They shouldn't be here!"

"Oh!" exclaimed Blair, clutching his arm, "I know about this! They're Columbian White-Tailed – really rare. They're still in a few places around here – just holding on."

"Aren’t we all, Chief?" asked Jim, with a wry smile.

 

 **Title** : Penguin-free Zone  
**Type:** Gen  
**Rating:** General Audiences  
**Word Count** : 503  
**Summary** : When it’s not a Nativity Scene….

Penguin-free Zone

"What the hell is that?" demanded Jim, as he staggered out of the elevator on Major Crimes' floor, dragging a most unwilling Mickey Martini.

"That," proclaimed Henri, adding another plastic figurine to the already overloaded table-top, "is a _tableau_. The Commissioner wanted a _tableau_ for each floor, and I got the job. Only the Good Lord knows why I'm that unlucky."

"Where’s Baby-Jesus?" asked Mickey, twisting in Jim's grip to get a better look. "You gotta have a Baby-Jesus!"

"Shut up, you," growled Jim. "You're in enough trouble." Then he squinted at the table again. "Yeah, so where's the Baby-Jesus?"

"It doesn't _have_ a Baby-Jesus," replied Henri, in an aggrieved tone, "because this is a _tableau_! It's _not_ a Nativity Scene! On account of the Commissioner thinking that’s gonna offend people who don't believe in Baby-… who aren't of the Christian persuasion. So this is a winter tableau. With snow," he added helpfully, just as Blair emerged through the nearby swing doors and the accompanying gust of air swished much of the tableau's fake snow onto the floor.

"It's gonna be one hell of a mess, that's what it’s gonna be," muttered Jim, irritably. 

Blair was grinning and shaking his head at Jim's prisoner. "Mickey, Mickey, didn’t your Momma tell you not to give false leads to the nice Detective here. Oh, hey, Henri! Great tableau!"

"See?" said Henri, with a triumphant nod at Jim. "Someone appreciates my work. This is the best goddamn Arctic tableau in the building, let me tell you!"

"Except…" began Blair, stepping over to the tableau and peering down at it, "there aren't penguins in the Arctic." He picked up a little black and white penguin-shape. "The Arctic is a penguin-free zone."

"Jeez!" snapped Henri, snatching the penguin from Blair's hand and replacing it on the snow. "Everyone's a critic. So this is the Antarctic, okay? Plenty penguins in the Antarctic!"

"Yeah, but no polar bears," said Jim, pointing at a cuddly group frozen in various attitudes (roaring, sleeping, slashing wildly with front paws), perched a little way above the penguins.

"What? Oh, goddamn it to hell," moaned Henri. "Look, it's not my fault. It was a value bag of animals at K-Mart. It just said 'Winter Wildlife'. I didn't interview the damn things to check."

Blair was still looking closely at the tableau.

"This one's a kangaroo," he said, pointing, and with a note of wonder in his voice. Jim snorted. 

"Megan's gonna feel right at home."

"Jim!" Simon Banks was approaching. "You got the scuzzball! Right, Mickey, you've got some explaining…. " He saw the tableau. "What the hell is that?"

"A _tableau_ ," chorused four voices. Simon looked more closely, cigar poised.

"Where's the Baby-Jesus?"

"That's what I said!" crowed Mickey.

"Shut up, you," snapped Simon. "Henri, go get a Baby-Jesus. All the other floors have one. Burglary's got two, so you can nab one of theirs. Hey, that camel looks weird."

"It's a kangaroo," offered Blair.

"Okay, whatever. I guess we gotta be ecumenical nowadays."

 

 **Title** : Arrivals Hall  
**Type:** Slash (but nothin' much happens, guys…)  
**Rating:** General Audiences (cos nothin' much happens)  
**Word Count** : 479  
**Summary** : Someone's coming home

Arrivals Hall

Eight months, three weeks, six days and thirteen hours.

Jim wasn’t a man given to counting such things. After the first couple of weeks among the Chopec, he had even stopped counting his days stranded in Peru. But this time… this time was different.

The first month or so had been a transition, like waiting out a particularly long vacation - adjusting with difficulty to only taking one set of cutlery out in the evening, one plate; to checking himself when he was on the brink of calling out to a non-existent presence what they wanted for take-out; to stop waiting for someone to catch him up.

Then the reality had hit, and he had spent those next months, weeks and days staring blankly at a life he no longer wanted. No contact, save for some sporadic emails and, once, a crackly phone-line, when Blair had got to some half-decent town that had some electricity. Enough to tell him that Blair was feeling something similar. At least, Jim thought so… hoped so.

Eight months, three weeks, six days and fourteen hours. No more world-shattering, absolutely University-essential, anthropologically gold-dusted, never-to-be-repeated survey and research trips - not on his own, anyway. Jim would be going, too, next time (if there ever was a next time), despite a bellyful of jungles in his past. Anything was better than this waiting.

Eight months, three weeks, six days and fifteen hours.

He had happily wasted several of those hours travelling down to San Francisco, just so he could pick Blair up from the direct flight, sparing him the connector to Cascade. Sparing Jim another agony of waiting, too. He had stood in the observation area for yet more hours, watching the planes come and go; green lights, red lights, amber – flashing, static, gliding out through the night sky, and gliding safely home. In his semi-zone, the colours seemed an extension of the Christmas lights all over the airport lounge. He stared out of the dark windows until one particular set of lights set his heart beating faster.

 _Baggage In Hall_ . Hah, bet he wouldn't have much baggage; he never did.

Jim was waiting now in the Arrivals Hall, crowded in amongst the whole world which was squealing with delight as loved-ones emerged through the bland portal, Christmas carols a cacophony he could thankfully tune out. He fixed every sense he possessed on scanning the mass of arrivals.

A figure emerged; leaner, exhausted, something haunted about the eyes. Jim opened his mouth to call out, but there was no need. Blair turned his head and saw him, raised a hand, was suddenly lost in the throng.

Jim pushed forward and Blair was in front of him; mouth open in a kind of wonder, but no smile. Smiles just didn’t cut this; it went too deep.

Then Blair was in his arms. Blair was home.

 

 **Title** : Piney-fresh  
**Type:** Gen  
**Rating:** General Audiences  
**Word Count** : 493  
**Summary** : The Great Outdoors never smelled like that

Piney-fresh

It had been bad enough in the ante-room, where the Commissioner's secretary had on her desk a huge bowl of orange and clove potpourri, reeking of artificial orange scent. Jim tried breathing through his mouth, but his sinuses started to tickle. He could almost see the insidious strands of factory perfume snaking out of the bowl and making a beeline for his nostrils.

He clamped his jaw and did his utmost to suppress the sneeze, which emerged anyway as a kind of huge internal explosion. It made the secretary jump in her chair, and Simon look at him with apprehension.

"You got a cold, Jim?"

Jim dragged out a handkerchief and blew his nose noisily, trying to clear the scent.

"Nah, just a bit too much orange in here." The secretary looked at him askance.

"But it’s such a lovely natural fragrance!"

He was spared a reply by a summons to enter the Commissioner's suite, where he was confronted by a Christmas tree of mammoth proportions, standing by the Commissioner's equally mammoth desk. The tree was festooned with garlands, and – oh hell! - exuded the most stomach-turning scent – sweet, cloying and heavy, with a significant base of what smelled like the "piney-fresh" toilet cleanser that the PD had started to use the year before, and which had brought Jim out in hives. Until Sandburg, in a masterful piece of obfuscation, had argued that the PD should be using ecologically-sound alternatives, allowing Jim to go to the john without developing a rash.

He had barely sat down in his chair when his body was wracked by another enormous sneeze, and then another, and another. The Commissioner looked at him anxiously.

"You got a cold, Detective? I really don't want a cold over the holidays."

Jim grabbed a breath, and pushed his scent dial down to zero.

"No, sir, just some allergies. To artificial scents."

"Oh, I see. Like Marcia's orange concoction? I understand entirely. Whereas this lovely tree – I chose it myself! A real piney scent with this, don't you agree? Just like The Great Outdoors, indoors right here in this office!"

Jim could only nod weakly. The Great Outdoors never smelled like that, thank God.

Somehow he got through the meeting, and went straight back to the Loft afterwards in the darkness of early evening, his eyes still feeling heavy and raw, and his nose dripping. The Loft smelled, too; but resinous, and like a balm to his senses. Over by the window, Blair was setting up a large branch of Ponderosa pine – a mass of dark needles and bright-green cones. Jim breathed in and felt his sinuses clear; a breath of fresh mountain air.

"How…?" He gestured to the branch. Blair looked up and grinned.

"I've been out at St Sebastian's. They've had to prune a pine-tree, get the lower branches off the chapel roof. They said we could have one."

Jim nodded, pleased. Now, this really was The Great Outdoors, indoors.

 

 **Title** : Planning ahead  
**Type:** Gen  
**Rating:** General Audiences  
**Word Count** : 281  
**Summary** : Some things are meant to be

Planning ahead

"Blair, sweetie," called Naomi, "Don't you want the cookie-cutter?"

"Nah, don' need," came the reply. Blair was almost buried in amongst a bevy of the commune's children, and all were energetically making Christmas ginger cookies, unaware that it was a group distraction exercise planned by the adults.

"But how will you make your shapes, sweetie?" persisted Naomi, moving to the table to lean over her small son as he concentrated on his handiwork. She frowned; whereas all around him, dogs, men, trees, reindeer and houses were taking shape, more or less successfully, Blair's cookies consisted without exception of a rough rectangle, long-side up, on which he had scraped horizontal and vertical lines across the top third.

"What are they?" she asked, puzzled, pointing at the lines.

"They’re the _windows_ ," replied her son, still not looking up from his task. "Big windows, to see everything."

"Oh, it's a house?" she said, unable to keep the doubt out of her voice. Her Blair had his own ways with things, but usually they were more clearly executed than this.

"It's _my_ house," replied Blair, looking up briefly with a happy smile. "I'm gonna live there one day. Look… " - he squished two raisins next to one of the horizontal lines in the cookie dough – "… that's us, looking out!"

"Okay, sweetie, that's nice," said Naomi with a small shrug. So rectangular houses were Blair's obsession today; tomorrow they'd be replaced by some other delight.

Back at the table, Blair frowned at the house and, with exaggerated care, picked up another raisin, carefully placing it next to the other two. Then he smiled again, a private smile, and moved on to his next creation.

 

 **Title** : Ginger Up!  
**Type:** Gen  
**Rating:** General Audiences  
**Word Count** : 340  
**Summary** : Blair makes use of an old tradition. Sort of.  
**A/N:** So sorry about this! (And what Blair says is true, btw)

Ginger up!

"So," said Jim, a note of exasperation in his voice as he slapped the paperwork back on the desk, "this lot is as bad as the last. We're gonna have to get down to Robbery and encourage them to do a little better, if we’re going to get any Christmas leave at all. Come on, Chief, let's go ginger them up." He rose from his chair, picking up the last of the animal-shaped festive gingerbread cookies that Rhonda had left on Jim's and Blair's joint desk that morning – this one was probably supposed to be a reindeer, but as its antlers had broken off, Rhonda had rechristened it a horse. 

"Heh," snickered Blair, gesturing to the cookie, "you said ' _ginger up_ '! That’s appropriate!" 

Jim's hand, bearing the cookie, paused in its trajectory toward his mouth. 

"Huh? What're you talking about?" 

Blair was grinning. 

"Don't you remember? When we were at the race-track – they told us what they used ginger for, in the olden days, before illegal doping was big business for everyone, Big Pharma included." 

Jim frowned. 

"Ginger? No, what?" 

"Well," drawled Blair, pointing at the cookie, "it's kind of appropriate, it being a horse and all, but what they used to do was give the horse ginger. And that would make him stride out and look good, with his tail high. Go faster, too, I shouldn't wonder." He snickered again, to Jim's irritation. 

"What do you mean? Fed them ginger? What, gingerbread? Ginger feed?" 

"No, Jim," replied Blair patiently, still grinning. "They got the ginger into the horse, but not via that end, if you get my meaning." 

Jim stared the cookie, his appetite suddenly diminished. 

"Could work wonders if you tried it with Robbery Division," persisted Blair, with an evil leer. 

"Come on", snapped Jim, dropping the cookie back on the desk and marching out, with a guilty sideways look at the oblivious Rhonda. Blair's shoulders shook with suppressed laughter; he grabbed the horse cookie and stuffed it into his mouth, before hurrying off to join his partner. 

**Title** : Christmas, Sentinel-style  
**Type:** Gen  
**Rating:** General Audiences  
**Word Count** : 212  
**Summary** : Jim has a very clear idea about how to plan for Christmas 

Christmas, Sentinel-style

"SANDBUUUURRRRGGGG!!!!" 

Blair sat bolt upright in bed, heart pounding. In a nano-second he had gone from a nice dream - a very nice dream indeed, except he'd better not tell Jim what it was about – to wide awake and hyperventilating. Either the world was ending, or Jim had found out about the mix-up with the laundry. 

"Sandburg! Up and at 'em, buddy! Time's a wastin'!" 

Blair looked at his alarm-clock. 6.30am. 6.30 am on the first day of their Christmas without PD duties. And he was supposed to get up in the middle of the _night_? 

Jim appeared at the door to Blair's room, looking appallingly cheerful and full of beans. 

"Come on, Chief. If we leave now, we beat the crowds, and get everything done." 

_Shopping? Jim was talking about shopping?_

"Jim, we've got a whole 'nother day! Christmas Eve is tomorrow!" Jim gave Blair an indulgent smile. 

"Only losers shop on Christmas Eve, Darwin. If we leave by 7, we'll be home again by 9, parking will be easier, and there won't be a free-for-all at the tills. Then the rest of the day, we can do the pre-Christmas clean." 

Blair fell back on the bed again and feigned unconsciousness. Rooming with Jim was starting to have some serious drawbacks. 


End file.
